And when it happened, there was no fight, no shouting; only silence, as always, maybe a little more than always. Maybe a little more strained, maybe a little more forced. Everything that was left unsaid heard just as clearly heard when hanging in the air, words given no voice, questions no answer, memories and words of regret with no echo in another's heart; regret, love, sorrow smouldering behind peaceful masks, and the total absence of hatred that hurt more than all else.

Birds kept on chirping in the gardens, and their monotonuous song drifted in from the open windows. The music would not leave him alone. Every muscle of his body tense to appear relaxed, he fought with the song that threathened to take over his mind, pushing it away, fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms.

The sudden explosion of noise did not startle any of them, as if they all knew that it would happen there and then; and Tyelkormo muttered an undefined sequence of syllables that all preferred to assume an apology before bending down and sweeping up the remnants of his shattered plate.

It did not surprise them. Even in the days when all had been glad, they had been resigned. All fooled themselves into believing in what they saw, and heard; blinding and deafening themselves to what they knew would always be true. So none talked and none wept. Everything that was meant to be said long said, every tear meant to be shed long shed: and no more should ever come.

And Nerdanel took them into her lap and asked them whom they would like to stay with, in a strangled whisper, because she knew the answer: the two red-headed children so like to her, with her hair and her nose, and her mouth, even the discreet freckles of her skin; only the great dark intense eyes of their father's. Such serious little faces when she kissed their foreheads, not a tear, not a smile, not a gesture of their arms to cling to the cotton fabric of her dress: limp, like two identical ragdolls shaped by the hand of the same maker, obedient in her embrace under her kisses and as unresponsive as the statues of her creation.

Maglor went into their room that Telperion, when all else was silent, but he knew that none slept; and he held them close, as though he would loose them forever. They did not sleep either, and this time they clung to him, in the protective darkness of their room, away from all eyes and all importance of their acts, huddling themselves close against him as he held them because it was a moment that would never matter, children, frightened children lost in the knowledge they did not understand: and he wept over them because they could not weep, he wept, in anger and in frustration, because they had always tried to keep it from them, their youngest brothers: but in the end, they knew, they had always known.




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